Fantastic Beasts 2 Begins Shooting, Cast and Story Details Revealed

Let's get ready to rumble, Potterheads! Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 has officially started filming in the U.K. With that, some brand new cast members and the first official plot details for the movie have been revealed and we can now officially look forward to the epic showdown between Grindelwald and Dumbledore. It's going to be Johnny Depp vs Jude Law next year and, if the best version of Depp shows up, this could be pretty great.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that filming has officially started on Fantastic Beasts 2, while also revealing the entire central cast of the movie. As previously announced, Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne returns as Newt Scamander, Jude Law will be playing a young version of Albus Dumbledore, Ezra Miller returns as Credence, Zoe Kravitz as Leta Lestrange, who was only briefly seen in a photograph in the first movie, and Callum Turner as Newt's brother Theseus Scamander. Perhaps most importantly, Johnny Depp will be playing the famed, evil wizard Grindelwald, which sets up the plot for the sequel. Here's what Fantastic Beasts 2 will be about, according to THR.

"The screenplay, again written by J.K. Rowling after her debut in the first film, opens in 1927, a few months after Scamander helped to unveil and capture the infamous Grindelwald. However, the dark wizard was true to his word and escaped, gathering more followers to his cause. This time, it's down to his former friend Albus Dumbledore to stop him, but with the help of former student Scamander."

This is a fight that Harry Potter fans have known about for a long time, but it only existed deep within the lore. It has never truly been explored, so the fact that it will be what sounds like the climax of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 is a very big deal. Let's just hope that director David Yates can pull it off. Though, since he directed the final four Harry Potter movies and the first Fantastic Beasts, he knows the wizarding world about as well as anyone, second to probably only J.K. Rowling.

THR also revealed a lot of the new cast members who are going to be in Fantastic Beasts 2. Claudia Kim is set to play a young woman who features as an attraction at a wizard circus, Olafur Darri Olafsson as Skender, who runs said wizard circus, Ingvar Sigurdsson will play a bounty hunter, William Nadylam plays a new wizard named Yusuf Kama and Kevin Guthrie as Abernathy, the head of the Magical Congress in the U.S. It has been said that Fantastic Beasts 2 will primarily be taking place in the U.K., as opposed to the U.S. this time, but it sounds like the wizards from the states will still factor in.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 is set to hit theaters on November 16, 2018, which is the same month that the first movie was released, which worked out pretty well for Warner Bros. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them grossed $814 million worldwide, which is pretty great for a wizard movie that doesn't have the words Harry Potter in the title. We will be sure to keep you up to date as filming on Fantastic Beasts 2 continues.

Writer of various things on the internet (mostly about movies) since 2013. Major lover of popcorn flicks. Avid appreciator of James Bond, Marvel and Star Wars. Has a tremendously fat cat named Buster and still buys CDs. I’ve got my reasons.